“Goedkoop koop is duur koop.” I’ve heard this more times than I can recall, but I never really realised how true it is until recently.
No matter how much you’d try to convince me to the contrary, the thing about us humans is that we like quick fixes. If we’re losing weight, we want to do it fast. We want to eat a few healthy meals, go to the gym twice and then wake up slim and trim and sexy as can be. (And then go back to stuffing our faces!) When it comes to our careers, we want to be promoted to CEO in a year and we want to save up millions all in a few months. We like things, we want things and we want them now. Fast. Quick-quick. Because, the truth is, we don’t have patience. Not really.
Living in a society where everything from text messages to the internet to fast food has us geared up to expect instant gratification constantly and consistently, we’ve forgotten what it feels like to work towards something. To set our sights on a goal and put in the weeks, months or even years of work that achieving that goal will require. We’re all about getting things and getting them now. Want a brand new Benz? A new wardrobe? A new body? Get it now. Sannie down the street has it pre-ordered already. Gotta get it now, gotta get it fast, gotta be the first. Never mind that you’re neck-deep in student loan debt and you don’t answer calls from private numbers because Edgars has been looking for you. For longer than you’d care to admit.
It’s no wonder Hollywood, weight loss and pharmaceutical industries have been booming for years and show no sign of ever slowing down. Because we’ve been desperately screaming “shut up and take my money!” faster than they can sell us anything at all, let alone a dream. We want miracles, not mediocre. Magic, not macabre. We want quick fixes to everything in life, but sadly it often doesn’t work that way. Not for most of us, anyway.
When it comes to many things, a quick fix will never cut it. Because goedkoop koop is truly duur koop. You can cheat at many things in life, but you can’t cheat life. You can cheat many systems, but you can’t cheat your system. Eventually, sh*t will hit the fan and come back to bite you in the ass. Because sometimes there’s no such thing as a shortcut. There’s just one long, winding, tough and terrible road. You might find what looks and feels like a shortcut, but you might in the same breath realise that that road’s actually much longer than the right one.
I don’t know about you, but I’m all about picking the right road. And stopping to smell the flowers on the way. Because life on the right path is just as beautiful as the end goal. I think, anyway.
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